


make for better conversation

by forochel



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, kdrama meet-again-cute, millenial corporate regrets, various OCs who are Absolute Lightbulbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: Marriage Pact Modern AU in which Younghyun and Wonpil were childhood friends and drunkenly promised to get married by 30 if they're still single, right before Younghyun emigrates.---"Wonpilie," Younghyun says, drunk on misappropriated beer and uncertainty, "if we aren't married by thirty, let's get married to each other, okay?"
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Kim Wonpil
Comments: 25
Kudos: 109





	make for better conversation

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction based on fictional representations of real people. If you are or personally know any of the people tagged up above, please for both our sakes' hit backspace/the x button right the fuck now. 
> 
> massive thanks to bysine & unconscious for the demented bellowing, encouraging comments, and laughing kindly at me when i despaired about how this was meant to be a short and sweet thing topping out at 3k. ... also random shout-out to the non-fandom friend who linked me this song, not knowing i'd be repurposing it for a fic epigraph.

* * *

_These bruises make for better conversation_   
_Loses the vibe that separates_   
_It's good to let you in again_   
_You're not alone in how you've been_

\-- Bruises, Train (ft. Ashley Monroe)

"Wonpilie," Younghyun says, drunk on misappropriated beer and uncertainty, "if we aren't married by thirty, let's get married to each other, okay?"

"Will we be able to?" Wonpil asks doubtfully.

Younghyun rolls over onto his side. Stops himself from rolling all the way over and onto Wonpil.

"If it isn't legal here by then, we can do it in Canada."

"Canada?"

"You sound so doubtful."

"I can't speak English!"

If Younghyun were any more sober or clear-headed or blinded by the fear of — of losing this friendship, the oldest of them all, the desire to make sure Wonpil stays close to him, that the distance of an ocean and a continent won't sunder them apart ... if, if. Then he'd be asking himself why Wonpil's only objections were the logistical.

As it is, here and now, he blows out an exasperated breath. "You have like fifteen years to learn, Pilie."

"Will you email me in English?"

"I'll practise with you, yeah."

*

The emails peter out after a while.

Younghyun rarely comes home for the summer — the first year, he says he wants to make sure his new friends don't forget him; you understand, right, Wonpilie? He comes back the second year and is taller, but still sweet-faced, and tends to forget some Korean now.

"Bye-lingual," he says shyly in English.

Wonpil smiles back even though he doesn't fully understand until Younghyun explains. Promises to help him remember.

It's not entirely Younghyun's fault, when the reality of high school hits and Wonpil's life is consumed with school and hagwon and music lessons and — and _everything_. And in what little leisure time he has ... it's just easier, with the school friends that he spends so much of his time with everyday. Easier, with the common ground and understanding. Easier to hang out after school in the football field, to make plans to cycle down to the Han in Seoul and regretfully take the bus back, bodies aching with exertion and laughter.

He had emailed Younghyun photographs from that day, still bubbling over with happiness from a long day out away from all the attendant worries of a Korean high schooler. Eager to share, optimistic about — this. He'd been slightly less optimistic when he woke up to an empty inbox the next day.

The day after, there was a long rambling letter about a river park near Younghyun's school and photographs of the restoration volunteering Younghyun'd taken part in. Reading it, Wonpil should've been glad. Instead, he felt ... some sour, nasty twisting in his belly, a vinegary churn that he didn't like and wanted nothing to do with.

And Younghyun's Cyworld has lain dormant for _months_. The one time he asked, Younghyun replied sheepishly enough that Wonpil could tell he wasn't likely to remember to unless Wonpil reminded him.

Wonpil ... finds that he doesn't really have the energy to.

*

Younghyun goes to university in Vancouver, which is at least a little closer to Korea. That's what his grandparents say, in any case, when his parents make him call them with the news.

It's also what Wonpil says, when Younghyun plucks up the courage to message him on KKT. He wonders why this — the mere act of sending a message is something that needs courage. Perhaps it's the way the timestamp on their last exchange glares accusingly at him in the dark of his room.

Wonpil visits in autumn, one year. Chuseok week, when the leaves are at their prettiest.

"I'm allowed to travel out a few times before I enlist," he says when they video call to make arrangements.

Even pixelated because the internet in residences is _shit_ , he looks ... sharper. Thinner. Tired. It makes sense, Younghyun supposes; Wonpil having just been spat out by the gauntlet of high school in Korea. Wonpil's taking a gap year for reasons opaque to Younghyun — he'd heard on the grapevine (i.e. from his parents) that Wonpil had got into a perfectly respectable university — and has been teaching the beginner classes at his parents' piano academy.

"Oh, you're enlisting so soon?"

"When else should I?" Wonpil laughs. "I'm not some idol, waiting until I'm old before I go to the army." There are some undercurrents there, but Younghyun — Younghyun can't read them.

The strange feeling of familiar unfamiliarity persists when Younghyun picks Wonpil up from the airport. The same eyes, the same wide mouth, the same big ears — but now his hair is grown out from the close crop that Wonpil's eomma had used to keep those curls in check, and he is much thinner and taller. Still shorter than Younghyun, but not by much. Unpixelated, Wonpil has gained an edge of unreality.

"I'm so jetlagged," is the first thing Wonpil says to him, whining. "Hyung, I see why you didn't fly back so much now."

A pang of guilt echoes through him, but Wonpil's already pushing his luggage trolley in the wrong direction.

"Yah!" Younghyun can't help laughing as he grabs Wonpil's arm. "Just follow me, you zombie."

Younghyun is prepared to be his translator, full time, but then Wonpil turns out to have basic English, even if his listening comprehension is better than his spoken, and idiomatic turns of phrase trip him up.

"Ah, Brian," says Matt, Younghyun's roommate, to Wonpil, when they're introduced and then Younghyun has to apologetically tell Wonpil to shower and nap while he has a group project meeting to attend on campus. "What a keener."

Wonpil blinks politely up at him in confusion.

"He means I'm hardworking." Younghyun shrugs his waterproofs on. "Which —"

"You are," says Wonpil. He nods at Matt. "He's always hard-working."

After a few days of alternately shepherding Wonpil around the Lower Mainland and worrying about him exploring by himself when Younghyun is stuck in interminable lectures and tutorials, Vancouver is doing its thing and abso-fucking-lutely just gusting rain.

"I'll drown!" Wonpil says, looking out the window. Matt, who's just got back from his shift at The Great Dane and is still dripping water all over the kitchen tile, agrees.

So they postpone their plans. Wonpil doesn't seem overly concerned about hitting up all the tourist spots, in any case, and claims that he needs to tot up his expenses so far.

"Do you need to do homework, hyung?" Wonpil asks, following Younghyun into his room.

Wonpil's been sleeping out in the living room, on the random yo that Younghyun's parents had packed into a box and shipped to him for incomprehensible reasons. The pull-out sofa had been declared weirdly dippy.

"I'm taking a break today." Younghyun climbs on his bed, and reaches over to pick up his guitar. "I wasn't going to do work tonight, anyway, since were were going to go out."

Wonpil shakes his head. His smile is a wry little thing. "University here is so different. My high school friends who've started already — it seems like they study non-stop. It's so hard to arrange a time to hang out."

Here — here is Younghyun's chance, perhaps. To ask about why Wonpil took a year off, why Wonpil asked to visit. He's happy that Wonpil's here, of course, despite the persistent, nagging sense that he's only seeing half the picture. Wonpil — Wonpilie, as Younghyun's fallen back into calling him — is a bright sunspot, easy-going and easy to please.

But Younghyun says nothing. Maybe Wonpil just needed to get away from all that ... pressure.

He seems happy enough now, in any case, sitting cross-legged on one end of Younghyun's bed, sorting through his souvenir collection so far and counting up his money. Younghyun, leaning against the wall on his bed, picks idly away at his guitar.

"I guess this is the real Vancouver experience," Wonpil remarks idly. "The rain and being told that the mountains are to the north."

Younghyun laughs. He'd told Wonpil that, on the drive back from Richmond back to his flat, and Wonpil had gone around looking expectantly at people whenever he asked for directions every single time. "I prefer the snow."

Wonpil grimaces. "Snow is too cold. Rain is ... romantic."

There's a rap on the half-closed door, and Matt leans in.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I was gonna just order in some Mexican. Do you guys want any?"

"Oh!" Wonpil perks up. "Yes, please. What is the menu?"

Younghyun bites his lip at the way Matt — a six foot two hockey player — smiles helplessly at Wonpil and holds out the takeout menu.

"The usual?" Matt looks at Younghyun as Wonpil, who'd bounced over to take the menu, frowns at it in concentration.

"Yeah, thanks. Um, Wonpil-ah." Younghyun beckons at Wonpil when he looks up. "I can help you. You like cheese, right? Try the quesadillas."

"Ke...sa...di...ya," Wonpil mutters as he very obviously scans the menu.

Matt laughs and puts Wonpil out of his misery, pointing the line item out.

"Oh, this looks good." Wonpil looks up at Matt with gratitude. "Thank you, Matt — um, Matt. I want the pork quesadilla, please. And oh, hyung — " he turns back to look at Younghyun, switches back into Korean "— can we have nachos? I'll pay."

"You don't have to pay for _nachos_ , you're my guest. Of course we can."

Wonpil beams at him, and then turns that smile on Matt. "I want nachos too, please."

"Sure thing," says Matt. "I'll let you guys know when it's here."

Younghyun knows he's like two seconds away from patting Wonpil on the head. He'd chirp him for it, except apparently years away from Wonpil has weakened Younghyun's own defences against Wonpil's natural cuteness.

"Wonpilie," Younghyun says when Matt leaves and Wonpil's sat back down, "your English is so good now."

"I've been studying it hard," Wonpil says, lashes lowered like he's hiding something.

Younghyun frowns in confusion. "That's good! It's hard at home, isn't it?"

Wonpil shrugs and looks up again, gaze as clear as glass. "When I was a trainee, we had English lessons."

"Sorry, when you what?"

"Oh." Wonpil laughs a little. Younghyun wonders if it's time and distance that has made Wonpil so frustratingly opaque. "Didn't I tell you? I got into JYP."

"What?!"

"I'm sure I must've told you..."

The guilt swallows the breath from his lungs in that moment.

"I'm sure you did, Pil-ah, I'm sorry. What happened in the end?"

Wonpil shrugs and smiles. "I found that I wanted to tread a different path."

That turns into idle talk about Younghyun's plans for his future, and a lingering sense of having missed something important. It chews at him for the rest of Wonpil's stay.

Younghyun really isn't sure what he had been expecting. A romanticised rehash of the days gone by, maybe, even with the rare emails and kkt at odd hours of the day. It's hard to admit when you're twenty-one that you've already grown up and apart from old friends.

Wonpil hugs him hard at the airport, clutches tight. Younghyun tries to ignore how much it feels like a final goodbye. "Tell me when you land, okay?" he asks.

"Okay," Wonpil agrees, smile a little tremulous. "See you later, Younghyunie-hyung."

He receives a selfie of Wonpil looking worn out, if freshly showered and in his pyjamas 16 hours later.

"Thanks for hosting me, hyung," is the message that accompanies it. The floating dots tell him Wonpil is still typing ... and typing ... and typing.

> _Younghyunie hyung.  
>  Your friends are very nice and funny. __Please tell them thank you from me too._  
>  UBC is so beautiful and I can see why you like it so much.  
> Keep on trying hard to reach your dreams, hyung, I believe in you. Fighting!   
> I will work hard too, so I can show you a better me when we meet again.

It's the last thing that he hears from Wonpil for a long time.

*

Wonpil gets into teaching college and almost cries in relief. He can still sing, still make music, and teach others to love music as much as he does. It had been — he's still in contact with Jinyoungie, of course — that's a friendship forged in the fires of JYPE — but it had been, well. A wrench, to see Jinyoungie progress into the Real World ahead of him, even though everyone knew he was so much more of an all-rounder.

All Wonpil had was his voice and his piano, and his obliterating love of music: the snatches of tunes that popped into his head, the rhythmic beats, the delighting in harmonies and counterpoints.

He'd spoken at length to the kind hyung who was in charge of all the trainees. Jisook-hyung had been so encouraging, and told him about — oh, all sorts of plans and things that seemed more like wispy clouds in the sky. Like if Wonpil reached out to grasp them they'd slide through his fingers on a slipstream.

It's possibly the only time in Wonpil's life that he'd chosen the beaten path.

The turning point had been volunteering with the low-income kids' home in high school. When he'd been thinking about his purpose in life, and forking paths, and all sorts of things because his noona had also been consulting about her plans after university with their parents over all the banchan that Eomma could summon up at a day's notice.

He found that while kids only half a decade younger than he were a mystery — cute mysteries but incomprehensible nonetheless, perhaps because they came from such a different world — he really enjoyed giving them that refuge away from all their worldly worries. Expanding the horizons of their world. Showing them how art could tell their stories, and help them face their troubles.

It had made him feel ashamed, when he'd gone home to his loving parents: his mother who worked but also had the time to make dinner for everyone; his father who was indulgent and lovingly stern by turns. It had made him, Wonpil hoped, a better son.

But — anyway — Wonpil gets into teaching college in his second year of military service, and he almost cries in relief.

His sergeant looks at him in concern when he opens the email from his parents. It contains a snapshot of his acceptance letter.

"I'm going to be a teacher," he says semi-deliriously.

Sergeant Oh looks at him long and hard, and then says, "Well, I should think so. You've only been playing keyboards for the army orchestra for the past year and half."

So Wonpil spends the next few years drowning in learning theories and music. He's mostly happy, even if there's the thread of woe winding its way through his life. Especially if he's tipsy. The feeling of emptiness that opens up, cavernous and inescapable, when he thinks about turning to his side and telling a very particular someone a funny anecdote. When something joyous happens and he wants to open up an email or send a kkt to a long dormant chat.

But no, Wonpil had decided, all those years ago, that he would move forward with life, and let Younghyun to his own. He wasn't the sort to push in where there wasn't space for him, or to be happy as just — just some fondly regarded relict of the past.

There's an American in the first school he places into out of university — a Korean-American teaching English on some kind of placement programme. Jae-hyung helps Wonpil with his English too, in return for gentle teasing and corrections of his deceptively well-pronounced Korean.

To be quite honest, Wonpil isn't really very sure why he's still trying so hard with his English.

"It's useful," says Jae over coffees and marking one afternoon. They'd managed to escape to a nearby cafe that was a little too upmarket for their students (to be honest, it was also a little too upmarket for their salaries). "The _lingua franca_ , no?"

"Hyung," groans Wonpil. "Please don't introduce other languages now."

"It's part of English!" Jae pats his head. It had taken _so long_ to break him into the concept of skinship. "Anyway, you'll sound smarter. As opposed to me. Everyone thinks i'm actually Korean and just stupid."

"Korean's hard!" Wonpil laughs. He likes hanging out around Jae. Jae-hyung is easy to tease and quick to laughter, and contains an underlying quiet sadness that quite suits Wonpil when he isn't the mood to have fun.

He likes it even more when it turns out that Jae plays the guitar, and quite well too.

It is in the middle of writing up a proposal to the head of his department, as well as the foreign languages one, to have Jae-hyung co-teach some of the modern music modules, that Wonpil is briefly overcome by a brief pang of sadness. He cannot help but think of somebody else he once knew, who played guitar. Plays guitar, perhaps?

Wonpil hopes, in his heart of hearts, that his childhood friend still loves music.

*

"Dude," says Jamal at some point near midnight when they're both questioning all their life decisions — specifically the one to enter Ogilvy's trainee programme and then ... stay.

He and Jamal and Robin are basically the only ones left from their batch of trainees, and have somehow acquired trainees of their own because of attrition.

Supervisory duties, Younghyun has discovered in the past three months, are a scam. You have double the work to do — figuring out things for your underlings to do, checking their work, checking on them, accounting for their mistakes, _endless fucking meetings_ — but not double the pay. Definitely about half the sleep.

"Dude," Jamal says again, flicking a paper ball at him across the low glass divider between their not-cubicles in this godforsaken open concept office. "Are you just checked out right now?"

Younghyun grabs his cold cup of coffee and gulps down the astringent, oily dregs of it, grimacing. "Yeah, no, sorry. What were you saying about the workflow audit?"

"That we're fucked both ways coming and going if we don't get this done by financial year end. Like, Etienne will probably murder us in cold, Quebecois blood."

"At least it will be a very pleasantly accented death?"

"Just go get the rolly board, dude, I got it last time around."

He has to walk around for a bit to locate the much coveted whiteboard-on-wheels — the facilities staff had in a fit of design-y hubris outfitted each team pod with some kind of interactive touchscreen wall thing, but everyone agreed that nothing really beat a good old whiteboard.

In the middle of mindlessly pushing the board back to his and Jamal's not-cubicles, Younghyun's eyes catch on a doodle that someone left up on the board and forgot to erase. It — it feels like his brain stutters. That's the only way he can think to describe it. It's a fucking good thing he doesn't have to think of marketing copy for his own thoughts.

In faint black marker, someone's drawn a penguin with goggles on — and something in pink that he thinks is supposed to be a scarf. Younghyun's the only person of Korean descent on this floor, so ... it's probably not _Pororo_ , but it still makes him have to pause and inhale deeply.

He hasn't thought about the cartoon penguin, beloved of children all over the country he left almost half his lifetime ago, in years. Even before his family emigrated, he'd long since outgrown Pororo. The only reason he ever even was conscious of it was because of —

"Yo! Brian!" Jamal hollers down the corridor. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Younghyun shakes his head and starts pushing the board again, walking faster. He doesn't have the time for this right now. Not for this jolt to the system, and the way it feels like it's knocked loose things that had already been disturbed when he'd turned twenty-eight. It is such a significant age, back in his first home, and here in Canada it means ... means one step closer to thirty, he supposes.

Later that night — or early the next morning, when he's lying in bed and praying desperately for the night to miraculously produce another hour, his phone vibrates.

He groans, thinks wistfully about the resignation draft in his personal email, and reaches out for it.

Five minutes of squinting at the tiny hangeul later, he almost drops his phone on his face, heart leaping.

Five and a half minutes later, Younghyun rolls over and yells an emphatic _Fuck_ into his pillow, because — for some reason, probably to do with that fucking not-actually-Pororo doodle — his first instinct had been to thumb open KKT and tap on a conversation that's lain woefully dormant for a long, long time.

*

It's funny how time runs on. Spring melts into Summer, and thence the leaves turn copper and gold, fall to the ground, are covered with snow, and then a new year comes again. Memories recede and no longer prick with the same piquance, if left alone well enough. If they're papered over with other memories that Wonpil makes, with his school friends and new work friends and, occasionally, an ever-transient lover.

One time they're drunk at a noraebang — because it's a holiday the next day, and even teachers don't have to be on duty on national holidays — Jae says, while Sungjin-hyung, the school counsellor, is absolutely destroying a trot number, "It's weird, I always thought you'd be the long-term relationship kind."

Wonpil pauses in the middle of looking for his next few selections. "I am."

"No, you're a — a serial monogamist." Jae says the last two words in English.

"A what?" Wonpil tries replaying the last few syllables in his head, but when hampered by alcohol, it is an exercise in futility. "Jaehyungie-hyung, slowly."

Jae shakes his head. "You just, you know, date one person at a time —"

"--is there _another way_?" Wonpil asks incredulously. "I think that's called being a dirtbag."

"Well — okay, never mind, cultural difference." Jae flaps his hands. "Just, you know, you date people for like, what, a maximum of three months? And then you break up and are sad and we do noraebang and get drunk. Rinse, repeat."

Wonpil opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. Looks down at the remote in his hand, like it might contain the answers to Jae's unasked question. Or, well, an alternative to the answer that he doesn't want to even consciously articulate.

"I mean, it's whatever," Jae says in one of his weird half-sentences that made the Korean teachers wince. He leans back into the wall. "Just an observation. You do you."

The song machine switches over into the next track — another one of Sungjin's, but classic American rock this time, so Jae bounces up with the other microphone to join him as they air guitar and lurch around the room.

There is another round of drinks, which is perhaps one more than Wonpil should've had, because the rest of the night is a blur, with only one crystalline moment when he stumbles in through his door and is greeted by four pinpricks of green light staring at him out of the dark. He comes very close to shrieking, before one of his flatmate's cats moves into the dim light cast by the lamp in their hyeongwan and meows disapprovingly.

In any case, Jae never brings up Wonpil's dating life again, and Wonpil ... for some reason, Jae's words have settled into his brain, perform some kind of niggling restraint that has him shying away from flirtation and turning down offers without very much regret.

"Yah, are you crazy?" Jinyoung asks in an undertone, the one rare time he's in Korea and has time to hang out with Wonpil. He's invited Wonpil to a showcase concert of some sort — Wonpil has long since lost his grasp on the fine differences between the kinds of performances in Jinyoung's world. Aren't they all just ... concerts?

They're alone in a corner of Got7's madhouse of a dressing room. Wonpil's honestly feeling a little overwhelmed, with all these strangers and the cameras just filming random members of Got7 even though they're already done with work.

Wonpil makes a face at him. "No, I just wasn't feeling like it." When Jinyoung tugs insistently at his sleeve, he elaborates, "I'm too busy to date. I have a bunch of graduating students. No energy for anything else."

He gets a doubtful look, then Jinyoung's shaking his sweaty bangs out of his eyes. "Honestly, Pilie, if _that_ dancer-hyung even so much as made eyes at me, I'd —"

"— be doing absolutely fuck-all about it too." Wonpil looks significantly over at Jinyoung's shoulder. "Ah, speak of the devil. Incoming, Nyoungie — Hi Jaebeom-hyung. Long time no see."

So, yeah.

Wonpil works, and lives, and laughs as much as he can, and sees one full batch of students pass through his hands from their first year of senior high to the nervewracking clutches of university auditions. Some of them audition for entertainment agencies, and Wonpil has to bite his tongue.

"Oh, you'll get used to it," says Yu-Department-Head. "I've been here for fifteen years and after a while ... you know, you can only do so much. They have to learn to swim for themselves. We can only teach them how to."

"Yes, Department Head," murmurs Wonpil, bowing his head.

His third years — the ones who had suffered through his many mistakes as a rookie teacher and still, somehow, had affection for him anyway — have clubbed together to get him a special edition Pororo plushie, as well as a family-sized pack of Coque D'asse biscuits.

It's really only when it's happening to other people, like Sikyung-gun and Dongwan-gun, that Wonpil really thinks about how unfair conscripted service is. That's an average of two years that these boys won't get to practise as much as they need to, to get into conservatory programmes. These boys love interpretation and performance so much, and it cuts to the quick — how they must serve their country in capacities that do not best suit their potential.

Because he's being particularly maudlin, Jae drags him to Itaewon during the week they have to breathe and finish up paperwork after the third years leave.

"I want to _speak English_ ,”' Jae says stridently whilst they're waiting for their drinks at this extremely twee bar. They had to find their way in through a fake fridge door. The bar snacks are dried fruit strips and weird preserved flower petals. They placed their orders through corded telephones down to the actual bar. Wonpil has no idea how Jae finds these places. "To people who aren't _more than a decade younger than me!!!_ "

*

It's been a long month of ... of settling back into Korea. This strange new-old place. Getting used to the 24/7 madness of Seoul, getting to know his new team. His new employers. The work-life balance isn't as terrible as his parents had warned him about. It certainly isn't worse than Ogilvy. It might even be better, at this boutique agency run by a Korean-Irish couple.

It's the Irish half of his bosses who sent him to this bar after the company barbeque dinner, commanding him to have a good time and not show his face in the office until Monday.

Younghyun was happy to comply, and even happier when he's sipping on his first drink.

For a place that has made itself so hard to find, it's very popular. Or maybe it's _because_ of that air of exclusivity.

Once he'd managed to identify the correct door and get in, he'd been directed up two storeys to a long, narrow room that was lined on one wall with a long bartop and stools. Old-fashioned public telephones were set at intervals into the concrete wall. On the far end, barely visible to the eye with how fashionably dim it was in here, were what Younghyun assumed was a cluster of group seating.

What with all the kitsch, Younghyun hadn't been expecting much. He vaguely remembers visiting a bar like this on a trip down to NYC before. That bar had definitely been more air than substance.

So when he's slid into the promised empty stool, placed, and received his order for some kind of drink infused with mountain herbs, he blissfully sinks into the kind of contented daze that only a really good post-prandial drink can induce. Younghyun is also pretty sure some of these herbs have done more than just _flavour_ the drink. Or maybe it's this slow house music: a bit of jazz, a bit of ambient electronica, a bit of rnb, laid over an elastic, gooey sort of beat.

Random thoughts chase themselves through his mind like dolphins — the hipster demographic, this fashion for brutalist minimalism, similar bars he used to go to in Toronto, why Korea doesn't have composting ... all the ways that he's been feeling like he's been trying to put on a pair of shoes that no longer fit quite right.

He's roused by a sudden, unexpected burst of English.

"I want to _speak English_ ," the guy on his left whisper-shouts. Ah, the couple next to him must've left at some point. He vaguely remembers some shuffling of bodies. Murmuring. The sounds of people struggling out of their jackets.

"— to people who aren't _more than a decade younger than me!!!_ " concludes Younghyun's neighbour, passionately.

Younghyun snorts, probably a little louder than is polite.

"See! He gets me!" The guy gestures at Younghyun as Younghyun turns to apologise and/or commiserate.

Then the world — the world freezes.

Because that. That's —

"Younghyun-hyung?" Wonpil whispers.

"Uh," says the guy caught in the middle of the way Younghyun can't stop staring at Wonpil. "You ... used to know each other?"

"Childhood friends." Younghyun sounds far away even to his own ears. He's most occupied with cataloguing the differences. The fine lines around Wonpil's eyes, the barely-concealed bruises under his eyes, the way time seems to have whittled his face down so that his cheekbones are starkly cut, his jaw a little less delicate. Deja-vu hits him; he remembers having done this at the airport in Vancouver, almost —

"Ten years," Wonpil says, small and lost. "It's been ten years."

His eyes are wide with — shock, Younghyun thinks. It's probably the same shock that's still reverberating through him, stealing the words from his tongue.

"O....kay, so. Oh. _Oh_. I _see_ ," says Wonpil's ... friend? Boyfriend? Younghyun can't tell. His brain's just — gone offline. Anyway, English Guy's eyes dart between the two of them, and he slides off his stool. Younghyun wants desperately to know what he sees. "I think I see some of the guys from my weekend basketball league over there? I'm gonna go say hi. Send my drink over when it gets here, would you?"

When Younghyun follows the direction of his wave, he sees only a cluster of bodies at the other end of the room.

"Yah," the guy's saying to Wonpil, "text me when you leave, okay?"

Younghyun whips back around so fast he thinks his neck cracked.

Two seats away, Wonpil is still looking at Younghyun like he's seeing a _ghost_. He nods mutely in answer to his friend's question.

"Words, Wonpilie." — Younghyun twitches at how, how familiar they seem. He's painfully aware that it's hypocritical in the wake of every time he could've sent a message and didn't — "Use your words."

"Yes, Jae-hyung," Wonpil murmurs absently. "You too."

Jae-hyung rolls his eyes, magnified behind his oversized hipster glasses, and ruffles Wonpil's hair. "If you'll even check your phone. Have fun catching up." Then he gives Younghyun a long, impenetrable look. "I can't beat you up, but I know people. Terrifying men from Busan."

That startles Younghyun into laughing, which visibly jolts Wonpil out of the frozen state he'd been caught in.

"Hyung!" he whines — the years seem to fall away — and smacks Jae on the arm. "Don't be so — "

"Just looking out for you, Pilie. And you, uh —"

"Younghyun." He holds his hand out. Jae gives it a mystified shake. Belatedly, Younghyun realises that he'd been doing it the Western way. "I'll make sure Wonpil gets home safe."

Jae blinks, and looks at Wonpil with his eyebrows raised so high they disappear into his floppy fringe. "Right, yeah. Okay. Text me anyway, brat."

He leaves an awkward silence in his wake, and an entire seat's space between them. It feels, somehow, symbolic of the gulf of time between them. The distance that had pulled them apart, eventually.

"You —"

"Is he—"

They start speaking at the same time, and then Wonpil laughs, covering his mouth.

"You go first, hyung."

"No, you — ah, okay. Uh. Is Jae-sshi your ... I mean ..."

Wonpil looks confused, his head tilting familiarly. A look of horror steals over his face. "No! Oh my — no! Ew! I mean, not ew, Jaehyungie-hyung is very nice, but — no, we're — colleagues. Friends. Work friends."

The way that he's waving his hands about in denial is — it's cute. And another thing in the "things that haven't changed" column.

"Okay, okay." Younghyun laughs a little, spins his glass idly on the damp countertop. "I believe you."

Wonpil is a little pink about the ears and he purses his lips. "I just want to make it clear. _So_ many people make this mistake, especially in Itaewon."

"You seem like ... very good friends," Younghyun says carefully.

"We are." Wonpil's very firm about this. "But hyung is hyung." He pauses when his and Jae's drinks arrive, and he has to apologetically direct their server down the room. "And anyway, I know his type and I'm not it."

Younghyun snorts, and downs the dregs of his drink. "All right, all right, he's a good hyung, then."

"Yes." Wonpil sips carefully at his drink — a clear cocktail with fruit in it, served in a tall flute. The smile that spreads over his face as he tastes is slow and really, really something Younghyun finds that he's missed. Wonpil looks up at Younghyun; there's a twinkle of mischief in his eye. "He's very protective. In his own way."

"I noticed," says Younghyun drily. "But — what were you going to say?"

He almost wishes that he hadn't reminded Wonpil, because Wonpil's face goes still. The twinkle in his eye vanishes; he looks a little sad, like this.

"Oh. I ... I was just going to say — just. You came back." Wonpil looks down at his fingers where they are twisted together in his lap. "I — are you just visiting?"

He'd wanted to tell Wonpil. Over and over, he'd opened their chat in KKT, and — taking the coward's way out — closed it again. Reasoning that the news would probably get back to him, via the parental grapevine.

"No." Younghyun moves stools, remembering at the last minute to transfer his jacket and bag to the hook closest to him. "I ... I got a job here. In Seoul."

Wonpil's head whips up and his eyes are ... they're something. There's this look painted on his face that Younghyun's too scared to parse, before it contracts into something more controlled, smaller. "Oh. Congratulations? When did you ... "

Younghyun can't help but smile. "Thank you. Just a month ago, and I've been so busy since ..."

Wonpil's already nodding vigorously. "Yes, of course, I don't mean to — I mean, I remember what it was like, starting at my school."

"No, no," Younghyun demurs. "It's fine. Tell me more about teaching? Do you like it?"

If Jae-sshi has been so good as to read the atmosphere and leave, then Younghyun ... Younghyun is going to grasp this unlooked for chance with both hands and hope it doesn't slip through his fingers.

Wonpil's already smiling a little, eyes distant with fond memory. "I like it, I like it. That's — that's actually why Jae-hyung brought me here, actually. My first batch of students graduated recently, and I had them for all three years so ... it's like ... " He sighs, traces a finger through the ring of condensation that Younghyun's drink has left on the stone bartop. "I guess it's kind of like what parents feel, when their children join society."

Afraid of breaking the reverie that Wonpil's in, Younghyun just tries to hum encouragingly.

"It's ... I'm proud of them, and scared, and a little amazed I haven't messed them up. My music babies." Wonpil looks up then, catches Younghyun's gaze for a brief, breathless moment, and then glances away. "Ah, what do I sound like?"

"No, no," — Younghyun wants to reassure him somehow, but can't work out how to — "it sounds ... it sounds like you're a really good teacher."

"I hope so," Wonpil murmurs into his drink.

"You sound like you love them a lot. And that you'll try no matter what for them. That's like, the basics of being a good teacher, right?"

Wonpil tilts his head, the corners of his lips tipping up a bit. "I think my professors in teaching college would have a lot to add to that, but ... thank you. Your first class is always special too, I guess."

"My high school English teacher —" Younghyun hesitates, then forges on when Wonpil just looks at him expectantly "— she was fresh out of teaching college too, but ... she was like you, I guess. We all liked her a lot. We're still in touch."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I even had drinks with her before moving — moving back here."

Wonpil's eyes go absolutely round. " _Wow_. I can't imagine ... with my kids..."

Younghyun huffs out a laugh. "It's also been over ten years since I graduated. Things are a bit different then."

"I suppose." Wonpil stirs his drink restlessly, then looks up, biting his lip.

"So — ah, hyung?" It aches, how hesitantly Wonpil says it. Younghyun nods hard, unsure of what else he can say. "Hyung. Okay. Hyung, are you... are you staying?"

"I think so," Younghyun say. "I mean, I don't plan to ... change jobs soon."

Wonpil nods, smiles a bit. "What, um, what _do_ you do? Is it the same thing as what you did in Canada?"

The thing about marketing is that it mostly makes sense to the people working in it, and is very hard to explain to everyone who wasn't a business major.

Younghyun does his best, anyway, and gets about as far as mentioning Ogilvy when Wonpil perks up, the look of consternation on his face smoothing out into delight.

"Hyung! You did manage to do marketing in the end! It's what you wanted, right?"

Something sweet and thrilling thrums through him, at the realisation that Wonpil remembers.

He ducks his head, a little overwhelmed and trying to hide the smile that's taken over his face. "Yeah, I got ... I got a really good internship in third year. It really opened doors for me."

"Aaaah," Wonpil says sagely, "Networking. Noona complains about it all the time."

Younghyun laughs — he doesn't remember laughing this much in months. Work had been so stressful, and even the relief of handing in his resignation hadn't lasted long. The anxieties of uprooting himself, the anticipation of having to build a new life and make new friends in a country that by all rights should also be his ... it had been hard, but he'd just wanted to start afresh, away from all the things he now associated with Toronto. Late nights, migraines, too much coffee, the feeling that something intangible and unidentifiable was slipping away from him as the days cycled by.

"It's not for everyone," he agrees.

"I prefer to make friends," Wonpil says, and then makes a ridiculous moue of disappointment when he lifts his glass to his lips and finds that it's empty.

Younghyun taps the phone next to him. "Another round?"

While waiting for their drinks, Younghyun finds himself going on at length about admin (something they can both commiserate about) and office politics (shockingly — to him — present in schools) and that one year a project team he was on went to Cannes.

"Like ... the film festival?" Wonpil asks, confused.

"Ah, no, sorry. The Lions — it's just some other festival for marketing folks."

"Oh! Wow!" Wonpil holds his glass of water up and Younghyun cheerses him a little sheepishly; that had been two years ago. "You're doing really well, hyung. I'm glad."

"I do all right," Younghyun says.

But Wonpil makes him talk some more about — about what France was like, his life in Toronto, why he left Vancouver (it's so pretty, hyung!) and work, and how his parents are. He even asks after Matt, whom Younghyun hasn't actually seen in five years, because flights within Canada are stupidly expensive.

At some point they get more drinks, and Younghyun turns the questioning on Wonpil. Jae leaves the bar at some point in their third round, the weird rainbow prism mood lighting that'd been turned on at some point glinting off highlights in his hair. He raises his eyebrows at them when he goes past, waves his phone significantly in their general direction, and tells Wonpil to drink more water.

Wonpil says he has to tap out after that. Younghyun can see why. Wonpil's leaning hard with one elbow on the countertop, and just has gone lax all over. He's tipping forwards, chin propped in his hand so that he's looking up at Younghyun with those unchanged eyes, big and warm and long-lashed.

The way that he laughs while retelling a funny story is unchanged too — so hard he can barely get the words out.

"— I had to pretend to be angry, but I don't think I really managed it," Wonpil says in between giggles. "It was just so ... what? How? Why? And they didn't stop playing that stupid _meme_ for the entire lunch break. Or marching around the gym. I tried to explain it away to the Discipline Mistress as some graduation-related temporary insanity."

"Did it work?"

"Sort of." Wonpil bubbles over with tipsy giggles again, for some reason he doesn't see fit to share.

"How do they have so much energy?" Younghyun marvels. He fishes a soaked and pulverised strawberry out from the bottom of his glass. Thinks about offering it to Wonpilie, whom he remembers liking strawberries — but no, Wonpil's just about wobbling over the line between tipsy and drunk right now. "Just listening to your stories makes me feel old."

"Hyung, you're thirty this year," Wonpil laughs. "We _are_ old."

"I'm not — oh, Korean age." Younghyun blinks hard.

Thirty. There was something about that. Now, looking at the alcohol flush on Wonpil's cheeks, and the way he looks sleepy and content, cheek propped up by a hand, the memory hits Younghyun like a freight train. Half a lifetime ago: this same look on Wonpil's face, drunk on much less expensive alcohol, and a promise.

Hard on that train's heels is the disorienting realisation while _this_ Wonpil is now a familiar stranger, he's ... he's someone whom Younghyun's eager to learn more about, to learn as well as he did before. No — better; better than that.

"You've forgotten a lot of things, hyung," Wonpil observes. "I think Jae-hyung is more Korean than you now."

Younghyun shakes his head, tamps down on the urge to poke him. Converts it into a smile instead. "I guess it's a good thing you’re here to remind me, then."

As the light flush on Wonpil's face deepens, Younghyun is fascinated to see that it spreads all the way up to Wonpil's ears.

"I ..." Wonpil looks down at the remnants of his raspberry Collins and swirls the highball shyly. "Yeah, it is." Then he yawns and covers his mouth with the back of his hand a few beats too slow. "Ah, sorry, it's just ... I'm not used to being up so late."

"No, no, Wonpil-ah, it's my fault for keeping you up."

Wonpil's breath hitches — Younghyun wonders if he's got the hiccups. But he only smiles mischievously up at him and says, "And encouraging me to drink so much." He pushes the rest of his drink over to Younghyun. "You should take responsibility, hyung. Finish it."

Younghyun does. He also one hundred percent uses his height and weight advantage to get to the bill first.

"I'm older than you —"

"— by _four months_!"

"And, uh," Younghyun stutters, trying to cast about for a reason that isn't just a starkly honest _I have to make it up to you_. "Just let me treat you, okay?"

Under the carefully blank gaze of their server, Wonpil wilts and acquiesces.

It's bitterly cold outside, so they loiter in the entrance vestibule, next to the humming refrigerators and brightly lit fruit displays, while waiting for their taxis.

Wonpil is listing a little to the side. With his coat and backpack on, he looks ... achingly vulnerable. Younghyun wonders briefly if he should actually make sure he gets home all right.

"I'll pay for next time," Wonpil declares, and then buries his face further into his scarf. His red ears betray him. Younghyun's glad that he's basically disappeared into his massive scarf because the smile on Younghyun's face, reflected in the dark glass, is nothing short of embarrassing.

"If you insist," says Younghyun. "Do you still have the same number?"

And it — it's so strange, to be exchanging numbers like they don't have all this history between them. Like they haven't fallen off their bikes together, or gone with each other to buy their first cellphones, or watched fucking _Pororo_ together when it first came out.

Then Wonpil's car arrives first, and Younghyun's helping him in and making him promise to text when he gets home, and watching the car until it disappears around a corner.

Younghyun feels — buoyant. Like something's fallen into place. A key fitting into a lock, waiting to be turned. This, he thinks, as he spies his own car approaching, is a _good_ kind of anticipation.

On the way back to his flat, Younghyun unlocks his phone.

For the first time in ten years, he thumbs over to his chat with Wonpil with only gladness in his heart, and starts typing.

*******

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> this is so incredibly not the fic i was writing for wonpil's bday that i mentioned in my end notes for [the 365247 fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031729) but uh. i'm just so not in control here, everyone. 
> 
> anyway if you enjoyed this or it made you feel a ling, please leave a comment, kudos, and [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1262253372738097152)! stay healthy & safe out there, friendos.


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